Chesstories

A Day in the Life of Vladimir Kramnik
by Richard Johnson

[Interview 2001] Vladimir kramnik, 26, is the world chess champion. Next year he travels to Bahrain to play Deep Fritz, the world's most Vadvanced chess program, for a prize of £1m. He lives alone in Moscow. Interview by Richard Johnson. Portrait by Eva Vermandel.

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It's quite difficult for me to get up in the morning. I like to lie in my bed for 10 minutes and think of nothing - it's my favourite 10 minutes of the day. While I lie there, I gently exercise from top to bottom. Head, neck, fingers - I have exercises for all the body's muscle groups. I don't get out of bed much before noon. Maybe I'll have a sandwich or a yogurt, but lunch is at 3pm, so there's no point having breakfast. Just a cup of coffee. It's two hours before I feel completely fresh.

My apartment is five years old. It's in a good district, just south of Moscow, but it's small. I have one room where I sit at my computer, and one where I sleep. There is a balcony, but it doesn't overlook anything romantic. There are no pictures of me about the place, and the rooms are half empty. There's a bed, a table and two chessboards I keep for training purposes. They aren't expensive gold sets that cost £100,000; they cost £100, and were both birthday presents from my brother.

Believe it or not, I don't care much about money. I've been a millionaire since my world-championship match with Kasparov last year, but I live like a very ordinary Russian citizen. I've never had any wish to live in a castle. And I don't have any special hobbies, like Ferraris. I don't actually have a car: I employ a driver instead. I like having the money, but mainly so I can help my family. My father is an artist and my mother is a music teacher, and they aren't rich. It makes me happy to help them out.

Since I became world champion I get a lot of telephone calls. Too many, actually. Whether it's journalists or tournament organisers, it all takes time out of my day, which means I've got less time to work on my chess. A year ago I could read a book for two hours; now I don' t even have two free hours in a row - more likely 15 minutes. Everybody wants to speak to me. I've got four mobile phones: one that works all round the world, and three that work in Russia.

Most of my neighbours know who I am. Chess is popular in Russia, and I reckon that 90% of the country know my name, and 60% know my face. I think that's why I was asked to host the Russian edition of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? When I was asked, I smiled inside but said no immediately. 'Absolutely impossible,' I said. 'I'm not a showman - I'm a chess player.' I may be the world champion, but I still want the time to improve my game.

I like to lunch out with friends. I wouldn't say I'm on a diet, but I try not to eat unhealthily. I like caviar; who doesn't? But if you eat it every day you don't appreciate its delicate taste. So I eat it every other day. I don't drink at all. Well, sometimes I'll have a glass of red wine or champagne, but it's rare. It affects the brain. Not overnight, but over a long period of time. Suddenly you're not No 1 any more. You're No 10.

I practise against a program on my computer, but not often. It's certainly different from playing a human - a computer plays soulless chess and is better at calculation, but a human is better at strategy. I know Kasparov lost when he played a computer [Big Blue], but I think that was an accident. Being the world chess champion is a bit different from being the tennis world champion. You don't need to practise chess to play well; it's more like scientific research. Practice and preparation in chess is far more about thinking what your opponent will play. There are now more than 2m chess games on the internet, and that's increasing every day. So I study games and analyse them. I need to know what kind of openings and strategies my opponents are using.

I carry my laptop everywhere. Very carefully. Not because it's expensive, and not because of the information that's stored on it, but because of the time it would take to replace. I would have to buy a new one and set up all my files and databases, which would take for ever. So I never let it out of my sight.

In the evening I like to go out to the disco. It's dark inside, and people don't recognise me. I still want to look good, but I won't wear Armani just because it's Armani. I don't follow fashion. I hate techno and rap, but my tastes are quite wide. I prefer classical. Moscow is a good city to party in if you're Russian. We aren't snobbish, and foreigners sometimes find it strange that five minutes after meeting you we behave like best friends.

My time isn't about what I want to do: it's about what I have to do. So when I get a night off, I like to watch football or tennis on my TV. My laptop has a DVD player. It's worth it, because I travel a lot. I just watched Gladiator. We prefer a different school of movie in Russia, not just Tarkovsky. I also like Kubrick. I like movies where you have to think, not just wait for the next bomb to explode.

I go to bed at 4am. Almost all chess players do. It's because chess tournaments don't finish until 10pm. You can't go straight to bed after that. You need to unwind. You need to eat dinner, take a little walk, and work out how to improve your game. Chess is intensive mental work. I dream about chess when my head is overloaded. The last match I played against Kasparov went on for a month, and I dreamt about chess every night. I was trying to solve chess problems in my dreams. When I woke up, I discovered I was trying to solve problems that had no solution. But chess is like that.